A great variety of air conditioning systems have been used and these include conventional heat pumps, conventional refrigeration systems, conventional evaporative coolers, and various means for solar collection of heat or radiation thereof. However, all of these prior art systems have limitations which either cause high costs of operation or relatively limited performance under various ambient conditions, as for example evaporative coolers are relatively low in cooling capacity under ambient conditions wherein high humidity and high temperatures pervail. Conventional refrigeration systems tend to operate relatively well under the foregoing high temperature high humidity conditions. However, conventional refrigeration systems tend to cause undue extraction of humidity when the ambient humidity is relatively low. In many such instances these system require the employment of a humidifier in addition to the conventional refrigeration system. Conventional heat pumps are adapted either to be operated as refrigeration systems or as a heating system. The heat pump system sometimes operates under marginal functional conditions when the outside air temperature is low. Under these situation, the heat pump sometimes fails to provide sufficient heating for the interior of a building room. The conventional heat pump, however, does have one particular advantage. That is that it tends to balance the power requirements of domestic heating and cooling throughout the year from summer to winter. Such heat pump systems tend to equalize the electrical power requirements from summer to winter. Therefore, they provide for optimum use of power generation facilities serving municipal areas.
Conventional solar heating and radiation systems rely upon ambient conditions. When ambient conditions are adverse for a substantial period of time, such systems fail to perform adequately to provide the necessary heating or cooling for a building room. Solar systems may include thermal storage facilities. However, such systems have heretofore required unreasonably bulky storage systems due to the marginal capacity of solar heating and cooling which depend upon relatively constant ambient conditions.